In OE Period the initial clusters such as hn, hl, hr, wl, gn, wr, and kn was permitted. However, in ME period, the first four consonant clusters hn,
hl, hr, wl became a single phoneme n, l, r, l respectively while the clusters gn, wr, and kn still remained. Nevertheless, in EModE the clusters
gn, wr, and kn were reduced to become n, r, and n respectively as in Middle English, gnawen, wrong, and knight were pronounced as gnau
ən, wr
ɔːŋg, and kn xt but in EModE they are pronounced as nɔ, r ŋ, and nʌ t respectively Peters, 1968: 99.
8. Sound Muting
Sound muting is dealing with deletion of the sound in the pronunciation. The letter of the spellings is there but the sound is no longer uttered. The
disappearance of the sound occurs because of the two cases. The first is because of historical elisions, where a sound which exists in an earlier form of a word was
absent in a later form. The example is the mute of all r-sounds in final and before consonant in Southern English like in the words arm, horse, church, more, and
other. The absence of these sounds started in the 15
th
century and became practically general in court circles in 16
th
century. Other example of historical
elision is l in walk and half, p in cupboard, and d in windmill and kindness.
The second is because of contextual elisions, in which a sound which exists in a word said by itself is dropped in a compound or in a connected phrase. The
examples are the elision of d in blind man, Strand Magazine, and a good deal, the elision of k in take care, and the elision of t in last time and sit down Jones,
1978: 230.
Furthermore, Collin and Mees 2003: 103-104 relate the phenomenon of deletion as historical assimilation and elision. On contemporary state, the
assimilation and elision occur in contemporary i.e. present day process. That is, it happens only at one point of phonetic context, and generally, the assimilation or
elision in this extent is optional. Meanwhile, when the so- called “original ideal
form” is elided or disappeared, it becomes fossilized as the form turn out to be fixed. In this sense, they argue that there is a case of a historical assimilation and
elision process. The example is p in cupboard
[ˈkʌbəd] where the original form [ˈkʌpbəd] has died out. The ‘letter silencing’ of English spelling provides
numerous reminders of historical elision like in the words talk, comb, know, could, gnome, whistle, wrong,
and iron.
9. Sounds and Spellings
